


tell the world that we finally got it all right

by spacenarwhal



Category: Anastasia - Flaherty/Ahrens/McNally
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Marriage Proposal, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-23 18:40:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13793784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacenarwhal/pseuds/spacenarwhal
Summary: No one has ever bowed to Dmitri.





	tell the world that we finally got it all right

**Author's Note:**

> Derek Klena is 6'0. Christy Altomare is 5'4. And that height difference as emphasized when he kneels at the end of _In A Crowd of Thousands_ is entirely to blame for this ficlet.

No one has ever bowed to Dmitri. And really, Anya isn’t bowing now. But she’s kneeling, staring up at Dmitri with determination blazing in her eyes. It would be humorous, in any other situation, but any urge to tease her dries out on the tip of his tongue. 

“You should get up.” He stutters, heat climbing up the back of his neck and cupping the shells of his ears. He wishes he could blame it on the warm spring night outside their open window. Anya scowls, her lovely features creased with annoyance. “I’m waiting for an answer.” She says impertinently, as though Dmitri is being willfully difficult. 

He sighs, knows there will be no getting her up off the scarred wooden floors without an answer and there’s no answer he can give staring down at her. Even if she left the crown and ballgown lifestyle behind when she walked out of her grandmother’s house months ago, the thought of a tsar’s daughter kneeling before him makes his skin uneasy.

“Dima—” she starts when Dmitri kneels opposite her. He shushes her impatiently, cups his palms around her hands and the sprig of wildflowers she offered him when she asked. 

“I’m supposed to ask you.” He chides, but it’s hard to be indignant, hard to feel anything but a dizzying sort of elation that fringes on panic.

Anya rolls her eyes, but she smiles too, a flickering nervous dancing at the corner of her lips. “And what? I’m just supposed to wait for you to get your act together?” 

Dmitri laughs, incredulous. “I’m saving for a ring.” He says, tempted to tell her that Vlad had agreed it would be romantic, be he doesn’t think she’ll be persuaded.

So little of their story has been the stuff of fairytales. Squatting together in the old rooms back in Petersburg (fighting for their turn on the sack of lentils, even if the cold seemed to reach them regardless), sleeping slumped against one another on the crowded train, trudging through the wilderness. Their fight after the opera. Walking away from her with the certainty that he would never see her again weighing down on his heart. 

Even now they share this apartment, cramped and small, the floors and their sparse furnishing perpetually dusted with flour from the bakery below. Not a setting fit for the lone surviving heir of a dynastic empire. 

“I didn’t ask for a ring.” Anya says, as though Dmitri should have known better. “Do you need a ring?” She asks, and even if she’s still trying for impatient there’s a hint of nervousness, a small tug of her hands under his like she means to pull away. 

“I don’t need a ring.” Dmitri answers, softer than he means. (He thinks of the diamond she conjured form thin air, the last secret she had to share with him before her past made itself known to them, how carefully she’d laid it in his palm. She hadn’t cared what it was only what it could get them, passage toward Paris and the promise of tomorrow.) 

“Neither do I.” Anya says, and there’s no edge to her words, the fire turned to a lulling warmth, like a warm cup placed into frost-bitten hands. 

Dmitri releases her hands in order to cup her face, strokes his thumbs over her warm cheeks. Anya smiles, leans forward and kisses him. Dmitri’s heart laughs. Anya is always beating him to the punch.

“So you wanna make an honest man out of me?” Dmitri asks when they part and Anya pushes at his shoulders, smile radiant as the rays of the setting sun hitting the Neva. 

“I don’t know anyone else whose up for the task, do you?” She teases, smile widening when Dmitri tucks a stray wildflower behind her ear. Its petals are white as pearls, stand out against her auburn hair. She’s never looked more beautiful. 

“Not a one.” Dmitri concedes, because there’s nothing he can deny her. 

**Author's Note:**

> Title from _I Choose You_ by Sara Bareilles.


End file.
